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If you're not a heavy Vim user you may not understand but the only way I can describe it is that Vim is different enough that it makes you forget how to edit te
by gschier 9y ago
If you're not a heavy Vim user you may not understand but the only way I can describe it is that Vim is different enough that it makes you forget how to edit text the "normal" way. One example is that Vim doesn't require arrow keys, so having to use arrows to navigate text in a normal editor is a huge pain.
- lucb1e 9y agoAnd hjkl is not the arrow keys' replacement, as many non-users think. There are a hundred other ways to move around a file, each of which are more efficient than hitting a button ten times. Those kinds of things are what makes Vim convenient (though not having to move your hand to the arrow keys for going one line down is pretty convenient, too).
- MaxBarraclough 9y agoI'm a Vim fan, but that's a little disingenuous. Ordinary text editors have ctrl-left and ctrl-right, which are equivalent to Vim's w and b. They also have Home/End and ctrl-f.
- ibotty 9y agoBut w and b are not the end of vi's (let alone vim's/neovim's + plugins') motions.
- MaxBarraclough 9y agoSure, but it's not often I win big by using Vim's advanced movement commands.
- jsjohnst 9y agoShift-G / gg are “big” wins for me on a fairly regular basis.
- MaxBarraclough 9y agoThat's a good example, but I suspect most editors/IDEs have their own equivalent shortcuts. Apparently in Visual Studio it's SHIFT+CTRL+HOME.
- jsjohnst 9y agoNot all keyboards have a home key and the vast majority have a shift/g key, but yes, i agree.
- zweicoder 9y agoOne of the most useful Vim motions for me has been repeating j / k for n times, e.g using 12j to jump down 12 lines. Combined with relative line numbers (to show how many lines to jump up / down) this has been a really big win for me to navigate around text.
- ibotty 9y agoyou don't use `)` or any other object motion? You should (consider)! `:help object-motions`